We arrived in Shelter Bay Marina on March 13 and had the admeasurer out to our boat on March 14. Our transit date was scheduled for April 14!!!!!! An entire month wasted sitting here when we could be using that time to cover good distance in the South Pacific. One of the advisors said that the delay is being caused by a pilot work slow-down. Their contracts prevent them from striking but they are calling in sick and also moving the ships very, very slowly because the pilots want a significant pay raise. This has caused a huge backlog of ships on each side of the Panama Canal. Our small yacht does not use a pilot, we will use an advisor (who is a pilot in training). But the large ships are given preference over pleasure yachts for canal transits (as it should be since they pay about $295,000 to transit the canal and we pay less than $2,000); so this work slow-down has created a huge backlog of ships on both Atlantic and Pacific side. So much for our agent's advice that it would take only 4 days to transit once we arrived back here from Bocas. Oh well, nothing to be done about the situation.

So Bill was able to get an appointment with the VA hospital in Houston and made a trip home. He was recently accepted for VA medical benefits and this was his first appointment. He is in excellent health but he takes a rather expensive script for his Crohn's Disease. This script costs $4700 per year; with the VA benefits it will cost only $15 per month. So it was definitely worth a trip back to Houston for this reason alone. Of course, while there he also purchased even more boat spare parts.

He returned and I met him in Panama City for a couple of nights in a hotel. We got our extended-stay visas for French Polynesia from the French Embassy/Consulate located in the old Casco Viejo district of Balboa/Panama City. Once you know what to bring, this is an extremely easy process and only costs 9 Euro ($13.85 at current currency conversion rate).

Our plans are to sail to the Galapagas Islands. If Bill sleeps well during that passage and we both tolerate it well (or even enjoy it), then we will continue on to the Marquesas, etc., ending in New Zealand in November. If we don't like the passage to the Galapagas Islands, then we will turn back and go to Ecuador. But we are being positive about this idea and obtained the visas for French Polynesia now.

Our canal transit date is now set for April 12; but they also told me to keep calling back because it might change to April 10. The boat is heavily provisioned and we are ready to get moving.

Another thing -- when we arrived at Shelter Bay Marina they were filming the new James Bond movie #22 at this location. It was interesting to watch the filming of the action scenes. They kept zooming right by our boat during the chase scenes. Will be interesting to see the final version of this movie to see what they did to remove our boat (and us) from the scenes. Figuring they will digitize us out somehow. The photo with this entry is the James Bond actor and the latest Bond Girl. We are not fans of the new Bond actor. BTW, the stunt double did all the scenes. Daniel Craig only did the close-ups and did absolutely nothing involving any action whatsoever. In this photo they are going back outside the marina breakwater to turn around and come back beside our boat once more. They did this dozens and dozens of times.